Inti to launch beepers, cellular phones next year

JAKARTA (JP): State telecommunications equipment maker PT Inti plans to launch mini-beepers and cellular handsets for the Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) early next year.

Company director Jopie Manduapessy said in Bandung, West Java, on Saturday that the beepers and the cellular handsets would be officially launched by President Soeharto.

"The products will be launched during the inauguration of telecommunications year, which is 1997," he said.

The beepers will be smaller than those currently found in the domestic market, he said. "The price will also be more reasonable," the Antara new agency quoted Jopie as saying.

The dimensions of the PHS terminal are 115mm in height, 43mm in width and 25mm in length. It weighs 120 grams, including the battery. One of the lightest cellular handsets in the world, the Ericsson GH 388 is 130mm tall, 49mm wide, 23mm in length and 170 grams in weight.

Inti has set up PT Indoprima Mikroselindo, a joint venture with a number of partners including state-owned PT Indosat and PT Yamabri Komunikasindo, a company controlled by the Foundation of Military Headquarters to operate the PHS next year.

In addition to the planned PHS, there are currently some 500,000 cellular telephone users in Indonesia, using three different systems -- the Nordic Mobile Telephone, the Advanced Mobile Phone Service and the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM).

Inti also intends to cooperate with Philips of the Netherlands to develop GSM handsets in Indonesia.

Company president Arsyad Ismael said that the company's revenues reached Rp 399 billion (US$169 million) for the January to November period, around 33 percent above the original target.

"By the end of this year, we expect to gain Rp 428 billion in total revenues."

Inti currently makes switching centrals, pay phones, telephones and card phones.

The company will compete with PT Metro Media Raya in the beeper manufacturing business. Metro Media Raya -- an affiliated company of PT Motorollain Corp., which operates Starko radio paging -- started its operation last week.

The lucrative telecommunications industry in Indonesia is expected to grow significantly in the next few years. However, no company has yet to begin manufacturing cellular handset terminals.

A number of CT2 (the second generation of the cordless telephone system) handsets have been assembled in Batam, southern Sumatra. Goldtron of Singapore also plans to set up a cordless telephone assembling facility in the country. (icn)